Phillips granted complainant status against two officers who conducted an unauthorized surveillance

By Lethbridge Herald on February 2, 2021.

Alberta's police watchdog says there will be no criminal charges for two police officers who broke rules when they surveilled NDP legislature member Shannon Phillips. Herald file photo

Tim Kalinowski

Lethbridge Herald

tkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com

Lethbridge-West MLA Shannon Phillips has been granted complainant status in a case against two Lethbridge Police Service officers who undertook an unauthorized surveillance against her when she was Minister of the Environment under the former NDP government.

The decision was posted on the Alberta Law Enforcement Review Board (LERB) website this week following Phillips’ hearing on Jan. 22. Phillips had appealed the disciplinary decision on the basis she was not included in the original hearing against the officers despite being the source of the complaint investigation against the officers.

“When you read the decision you see that the arguments that were made by the Lethbridge Police Service legal team were completely dismissed by the Law Enforcement Review Board,” stated Phillips in an interview with The Herald on Tuesday morning. “You will recall I had publicly asked the Chief (Mehdizadeh) not to fight this appeal, and to allow it to go forward. He declined, and instead chose to spend a bunch of money pushing back on the idea this bad decision that was made to keep these two officers employed by the people of Lethbridge should be appealed and revisited.”

“Now the full appeal of that bad decision will go before a public hearing,” added Phillips, “which will again be expensive for the Lethbridge Police Service, and potentially very embarrassing.”

According to the LERB report the Chief of the Calgary Police Service and LPS had determined, incorrectly, at the time the Phillips complaint was not directly tied to the investigation of the officers, who used the police database to search a licence plate of one of the people Phillips was meeting with when she was surveilled by the two officers. The argument was since the officer hadn’t looked up information about Phillips directly she was not impacted directly by the discreditable conduct of the officer, and therefore she should not be viewed as a complainant in the case.

“Clearly these were part and parcel of the surveillance allegation in the appellant’s complaint,” the LERB decision reads in part. “This alone, in our view, is enough to bring the appellant within the definition of “complainant” for the purposes of sections 42.1 and 48 of the (Police) Act, when one considers the spirit and intent of the legislation. This extends to respondent Carrier’s role as an accessory and failing to report the misconduct up the chain of command.

“In short, the board agrees with the presiding officer’s statement that the actions were ‘part and parcel’ of one continuous series of actions. Together, in our view, they constituted the ‘surveillance’ of the appellant and associates who attended the diner meeting.

This conclusion now grants Phillips the right to appeal the disciplinary decision.

“There was a serious error made in not informing me there was an entire subsequent investigation made after 2018 occurring to which I was a party, and about which I had absolutely no knowledge. There was an entire investigation concerning my safety in my own community that was undertaken subsequent to my initial complaint that I had no idea that was happening. That is a tremendous abuse of the public trust.”

Phillips said she now plans to go forward with a full public hearing on these matters, and will be seeking a different disciplinary decision for these two officers at the end of the process.

“Bad cops should be held accountable for their behaviour; full stop,” she stated. “The position my counsel has taken is these two officers should be dismissed, and there were errors made in terms of the disciplinary decision.”

The Lethbridge Police Service released a statement regarding the LERB decision after The Herald broke the news in the community.

“The Lethbridge Police Service respects the decision of the Law Enforcement Review Board (LERB) in regards to Ms. Phillips’ appeal, (it) acknowledges her right to appeal the earlier decision, and fully appreciates the importance of the process,” the statement reads. “While Lethbridge Police intends to provide the LERB with any assistance it may require, no further comment will be provided until that Board releases its findings on the appeal.”

The Herald also sought comment from the Lethbridge Police Association on this matter. LPA president Jay McMillan agreed Phillips has the right to a process, but believed the appeal would ultimately find the sanctions already imposed on the two officers were appropriate to the circumstances.

“I am not terribly surprised that she was granted status to appeal the disciplinary decision,” McMillan said in an emailed statement. “I think that Ms. Phillips, like everyone else, deserves access to a process that is not only sound but also transparent. The LERB decision granting her a right to appeal, while justified, does not suggest that the outcome of the disciplinary process was insufficient or unreasonable.

“The LERB commented on the fact that the presiding officer considered the entirety of the misconduct and its context in rendering what is considered a reasonable decision. So we will respect and participate in the appeal process as is needed while trusting that determining factors will be factual and not merely political appetite.”

In a July 9 hearing LPS officers Jason Carrier and Keon Woronuk admitted to using their positions as sworn officers of the law for personal and political reasons to try to overhear a private meeting between Phillips and conservation stakeholders at Chef Stella Diner in Lethbridge. The officers, both off-road enthusiasts, thought Phillips was discussing potential changes within the Castle area where off-road vehicles would have been restricted under a previous NDP government proposal, and acted to ascertain the content of the conversation by launching an unauthorized surveillance operation using police resources. (Phillips was actually discussing the potential release of bison into Banff National Park at the time when the unauthorized surveillance took place).

Woronuk later anonymously posted photos of the meeting on Facebook. Phillips launched a formal complaint with the Calgary Police Service when she became aware of the photos, and a subsequent police investigation led to the two officers. The CPS transferred the matter to the Medicine Hat Police Service for further evaluation which resulted in Police Act charges being laid. A disciplinary hearing was held on the matters in Lethbridge which resulted in both officers being temporarily demoted for discreditable conduct.

Phillips was never directly informed of these proceedings and only learned about the actions of these officers and the results of the hearing when the first media reports regarding the incident surfaced in mid-July.

To read the complete LERB decision visit https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/ablerb/doc/2021/2021ablerb3/2021ablerb3.html